What"s wrong with writing a story involving these:

[HorsesandMOARGaloar 300]

Female protagonists

 

High school stories

 

Young Adult novels

[I used to be a stranger 7,993]

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with any of those things.

Just like there's nothing fundamentally wrong with a story that contains:

 

Carrier pigeons

 

Hockey

 

The Batman

 

How a story is made, what attention to detail and level of applied critique and the level of external influence in its making determine the quality of a story a lot more than any intrinsic detail or subject matter within it. I once had an idea to make a story called "Christian Rocket Sex" and I realized it would take a lot of work to make an interesting story despite any controversy or excitement contained in its preceding description.

[Discordian 6,015]

It's not what, it's how.

 

Whatever you choose, you have to make sure that it's going to be a good read rather than just pushing a political agenda or something.

[Fractured 2,684]

they're usually too generic nowadays: Twilight and the Hunger Games have completely killed the young adult . No one knows how to handle High School settings, so they end up cliched too. I don't see a problem with female protagonsits though, unless they go all EQG and have the main character pander to a love interest. That usually only happens in tv shows, though.

[Jatuyu 33]

*cough* cliche *cough* So yeah, like every young adult novel is like that

[Jeric 46,851]

Young Adult novels?

 

YA isn't a genre! It's the targeted readership. That is like saying what's wrong with books for 5 year olds, or movies for teens, or television shows for little girls. *cough*

 

You almost got me into wall of text mode O-0

 

A good story can be created about ANYTHING if the writer knows what they are doing.

[Mand'alor Dash 2,224]

The problem is that you might write Twilight, which is why you need to be careful. Those individual elements are no more cliched than zombies, aliens or wizards are, but we still use those in our stories.

 

It's not about the elements you use, it's how you use them.

[Fractured 2,684]

Young Adult novels?

 

YA isn't a genre! It's the targeted readership. That is like saying what's wrong with books for 5 year olds, or movies for teens, or television shows for little girls. *cough*

 

You almost got me into wall of text mode O-0

 

A good story can be created about ANYTHING if the writer knows what they are doing.

The problem is: quite a bit of readers do not know what they're talking about, and the ones that do are buried the sheer amount of garbage that the former generates.

[Jeric 46,851]

*cough* cliche *cough* So yeah, like every young adult novel is like that

Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, Looking For Alaska, Enders Game, The Fault In Our Stars, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, The Lovely Bones.

[Evilshy 5,090]

Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, Looking For Alaska, Enders Game, The Fault In Our Stars, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, The Lovely Bones.

Clearly those are all exactly the same.

[Shanks 10,816]

Nothing at all, what is wrong with a lot of high school stories and young adult novels is the excessive use of cliches and a lot of Mary Sue/Gary Stu nonsense. There really aren't a lot of good stories with female main characters, things are getting better but we still have a way to go though things like MLP are a step in the right direction.

[~*bacon princess*~ 278]

You wanna write a story involving those? Great! I see nothing wrong with that.

Society does, though.

Especially if said female protagonist is fully clothed.

[M'aiq the Liar 5,804]

 

You wanna write a story involving those? Great! I see nothing wrong with that.

Society does, though.

Especially if said female protagonist is fully clothed.

 

The massive success of "The Hunger Games" would like to disagree with that. Katnes is fully clothed, and never goes into intimate sexual detail about herself. And if you are going to complain that young boys cannot identify with a female character, then that is just silly. No matter how hard you try, unless said character is a male in a females body, the mental differences in cognitive process are on average going to alienate the opposite gender.

 

And you can write a story will all of those elements and more. But it is how you do it, the anime K-ON fits almost all those implied criteria, but because it largely avoids the cliches (which lead to predictability, and viewer bordem). As long as you can make it interesting, and have engaging characters and interactions, there is nothing wrong. It is when you start having cliches older than Marty Mcfly that most viewers check out due to being board.

[LZRD WZRD 1,929]

I suppose there's nothing wrong with it on a fundamental level, however incorporating those elements is extremely unoriginal and has a reputation of producing pretty bad stories (due to writer incompetence, pandering to a target audience, or both). A good story could come from it. It really depends in who's writing the book and for what purpose (money or was there an actual creative spark there?)

[Jennabun 1,579]

I love young adult novels. Whoever tells you that young adult novels are always low quality and stereotypical is absolutely wrong. Young adult novels can be just as complex and compelling as any regular novel.

 

Female protagonists also kick ass. The only time they don't kick ass is when ignorant authors write them to be shallow and petty, which is not representative of young adult authors as a whole. I've read many books with female protagonists that were amazing. The Hunger Games is one - I don't know why another poster cited the Hunger Games as a bad YA novel; I feel like Suzanna Collins does a great job at writing Katniss as realistic and vulnerable, yet strong. Some other YA authors who do well with female protagonists are Malinda Lo, Sarah Diemer, Ally Condie, Rachel Cohn... And probably others, but I'm just blanking out right now!

 

Some may say that high school may be a cliche setting, but it doesn't have to be. If you have well-rounded characters with a captivating story, you can create a magical story in any setting.

 

Basically, people who bash YA lit are just being pretentious. As a YA lit fan and a reading teacher, I can assure you YA is legitimate.

I love young adult novels. Whoever tells you that young adult novels are always low quality and stereotypical is absolutely wrong. Young adult novels can be just as complex and compelling as any regular novel.

 

Female protagonists also kick ass. The only time they don't kick ass is when ignorant authors write them to be shallow and petty, which is not representative of young adult authors as a whole. I've read many books with female protagonists that were amazing. The Hunger Games is one - I don't know why another poster cited the Hunger Games as a bad YA novel; I feel like Suzanna Collins does a great job at writing Katniss as realistic and vulnerable, yet strong. Some other YA authors who do well with female protagonists are Malinda Lo, Sarah Diemer, Ally Condie, Rachel Cohn... And probably others, but I'm just blanking out right now!

 

Some may say that high school may be a cliche setting, but I doesn't have to be. If you have well-rounded characters with a captivating story, you can create a magical story in any setting.

 

Basically, people who bash YA lit are just being pretentious. As a YA lit fan and a reading teacher, I can assure you YA is legitimate.

Edited August 2, 2014 by Jennabun

[FractalMoon 378]

I love young adult novels. Whoever tells you that young adult novels are always low quality and stereotypical is absolutely wrong. Young adult novels can be just as complex and compelling as any regular novel.

 

Female protagonists also kick ass. The only time they don't kick ass is when ignorant authors write them to be shallow and petty, which is not representative of young adult authors as a whole. I've read many books with female protagonists that were amazing. The Hunger Games is one - I don't know why another poster cited the Hunger Games as a bad YA novel; I feel like Suzanna Collins does a great job at writing Katniss as realistic and vulnerable, yet strong. Some other YA authors who do well with female protagonists are Malinda Lo, Sarah Diemer, Ally Condie, Rachel Cohn... And probably others, but I'm just blanking out right now!

 

Some may say that high school may be a cliche setting, but I doesn't have to be. If you have well-rounded characters with a captivating story, you can create a magical story in any setting.

 

Basically, people who bash YA lit are just being pretentious. As a YA lit fan and a reading teacher, I can assure you YA is legitimate.

In the words of an incredibly offensive musician:

"Not all, just most; and all it takes is most." The problem with YA is that the books TEND to be exactly the same cliched, over-written, gratuitously purple trash as nearly every other book in whatever genre they're writing. 

As for why Hunger Games would be an example of a bad YA novel, it's not. It is a perfectly good YA novel. The problem is that Collins tries too hard to stray into the Military Fiction genre despite having no knowledge or experience doing so. That is the majority of why I disliked Mockingjay, aside from the fact that everything after Prim's death was really unnecessary and just to provide closure. The characters were fine, it was the plot that I had trouble with. Then again, I can mainly chalk that up to many writers having their militaries do stupid things that real troops would never do.

 

There is no such thing as a bad target audience, and a vast majority of things I thought were good as a kid I realized were terribly cliched and just overall badly written later. Honestly when you say "YA" people think of implicitly bad stories, such as Twilight, Defiant, and Eragon, rather than the good stories that are out there.

[Shift 4,272]

Okie dokie. I like YA novels, hell, I love the Hunger Games. Mockingjay was probably the worst book out of the series, justttt because the plot was predictable.

 

 

 

everything after Prim's death

 

 

SPOILERS. Seriously, dude, tag. The. Spoiler. Not all of us have read Mockingjay (I have, but you have literally spoiled that major plot point to everyone that hasn't read the book yet).

 

Some YA adult novels are bad, like Twilight.

 

Anyway, female protagonists are awesome. Let's take Katniss for example. She's sympathetic, badass, tomboyish, but still has feminine qualities about herself. And she never goes into sexual detail with herself either. Hermione from Harry Potter (Quite possibly my favorite book series ever) is not the protagonist, but she's still kickass, sympathetic, badass bookworm, and still has feminine qualities. Tris from Divergent, though i'm not a major fan of the book series, is well-rounded, realistic, sympathetic, tomboyish, and has some feminine qualities. 

 

High School stories are just really overdone, but can be good if handled well. 

[FractalMoon 378]

Okie dokie. I like YA novels, hell, I love the Hunger Games. Mockingjay was probably the worst book out of the series, justttt because the plot was predictable.

 

 

 

 

 

SPOILERS. Seriously, dude, tag. The. Spoiler. Not all of us have read Mockingjay (I have, but you have literally spoiled that major plot point to everyone that hasn't read the book yet).

 

Some YA adult novels are bad, like Twilight.

 

Anyway, female protagonists are awesome. Let's take Katniss for example. She's sympathetic, badass, tomboyish, but still has feminine qualities about herself. And she never goes into sexual detail with herself either. Hermione from Harry Potter (Quite possibly my favorite book series ever) is not the protagonist, but she's still kickass, sympathetic, badass bookworm, and still has feminine qualities. Tris from Divergent, though i'm not a major fan of the book series, is well-rounded, realistic, sympathetic, tomboyish, and has some feminine qualities. 

 

High School stories are just really overdone, but can be good if handled well. 

I can't find the spoiler tag button in this text editor. I apologize.

I'm ok with female protagonists, and I believe that Tris is more of a victim of bad writing than bad characterization. Hell, the entire premise of Divergent was a victim of bad writing. My problem is that female protagonists in the genres I tend to read (Science fiction and Military fiction) tend to be written by people who have no idea what they are doing, and as such write the stories badly. If you have any recommendations, I would love to hear them.

[Mephala 2,633]

Looking For Alaska, The Fault In Our Stars

Not sure if you're saying these books are good or bad, but I have to say they're both really bad. They both idealize and romanticize being in poor physical or mental health and feature immature protagonists who are Mary Sue's (everyone bloody LOOOVES Hazel), really weird speech (I'm sorry but no one talks like half the characters in actual everyday speech), stupid and irresponsible adults (oh okay you can go to another country with your boyfriend and no doctors never mind that you may relapse in any minute don't die sweetie LOL), etc. They are terrible role models to the millions who read John Green's drivel and believe that it's GOOD to be mental or on death's doorstep and that if you are everyone will automatically fall at your feet.

Also, he has no idea how to write a character with any of these problems, and seems to conveniently forget that cancer makes you look like and feel like shit because apparently all the characters remain beautiful and perfectly able to do things unless it's "advancing plot", wherever that was.

My friend knows I despise most books written for teens since most of them are clumsy dystopias with weird and giant plotholes and religious undertones (you can't fit an entire mind control system for hundreds of thousands on a single hard drive but okay don't stop believing) or some garbage about suicide/illness (don't even get me started on the piece of trash known as Thirteen Reasons Why, that is the only time I have ever burned a book).

The other books you listed are good though. No problems there.

 

Edit: I can't spacebar.

Edited August 3, 2014 by Cirrostratus

[Stellafera 3,836]

I suppose there's nothing wrong with it on a fundamental level, however incorporating those elements is extremely unoriginal

 

Female protagonists? 

 

I find it weird to lump it in with high school settings or young adult novels (although certainly neither are bad). Those two tend to have problems with bad, cliched writing, but there's also excellent things to find about both. Having your lead be a girl isn't a cliche, it's a 50/50 coinflip. 

[Mephala 2,633]

I can't find the spoiler tag button in this text editor. I apologize.

I'm ok with female protagonists, and I believe that Tris is more of a victim of bad writing than bad characterization. Hell, the entire premise of Divergent was a victim of bad writing. My problem is that female protagonists in the genres I tend to read (Science fiction and Military fiction) tend to be written by people who have no idea what they are doing, and as such write the stories badly. If you have any recommendations, I would love to hear them.

Highlight the text you want to spoiler, click the box with the picture next to "Font", select the "Spoiler" option from the dropdown.

Also a good book with a good female protagonist? Wool is a science-fiction novel, and the main character is written pretty well. The book is very imaginative as well, and I hear there's a sequel in the works.

[LZRD WZRD 1,929]

Female protagonists?

 

I find it weird to lump it in with high school settings or young adult novels (although certainly neither are bad). Those two tend to have problems with bad, cliched writing, but there's also excellent things to find about both. Having your lead be a girl isn't a cliche, it's a 50/50 coinflip.

I meant when lumping those three things together they're cliche

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

There's nothing inherently wrong about those concepts. It's just that few people ever do it good enough to capture the attention of critics and/or anyone outside of the target demographic.

 

In the example of the high school setting, there are plenty of stories you could tell that really haven't been done all that much before, but the genre has been dumbed down so much through popular interpretation that it's thought that only the same few stories can be told over and over again with the same tropes recurring. You can only see or hear the same things over and over again so many times until you get tired of it.

 

That's the notion that prevails until someone can take a risk with their writing style and create a work that can flip all of the conventions of something like a high school drama/comedy on their collective head like MLP did for girls' cartoons.

Edited August 3, 2014 by Unknown Pegasus #211

[Phoenix Flair 332]

Ain't nothing wrong with it as long as your story is original, not an archetypal mish mash of a thousand dead ideas.  I actually think that in those areas, especially with high school stories, there's a lot left untold, and I for one would appreciate a story that offers a fresh perspective on these topics.  Creative liberty for all!

[Snow Frostflame 3,568]

nothing is wrong with a female protagonist as for the other two people lose interest in those I guess I know I do